Yes, folks, I am starting to push out the reviews now that there’s a lull in events at the TTC. If you comment here, please make it relevant to the film, not to the problems you had on the TTC getting to the theatre.
Reviewed here:
For a review of the leaders’ debate and the brief time devoted to transit issues, please see my post on the spacing votes site.
In honour of Car Free Day, a post about bicycles.
Let me state my outlook right up front: I am a pedestrian, and I do not own, let alone ride, a bicycle. My relationship with these two-wheeled vehicles often consists of nearly being run down by them.
Having said this, I accept the premise that bicycles should be viewed as an important part of our transportation repertoire. The question is this: how can we meaningfully integrate them with the transit system?
Efforts to date have attracted a lot of discussion — bike racks on buses, off-peak carriage on surface and subway vehicles — but frankly I don’t think these contribute much to creating a workable culture for bikes on the TTC.
Bike racks have a limited capacity, and the number of travellers, especially in peak periods, whose trips could be carried partly via bike rack is a very small proportion of system ridership. Moreover, since most trips involve at least some subway travel, and bikes cannot enter the subway during peak periods, many trips simply cannot be made with a bike/TTC combination.
Recently, the City has begun to install bicycle lockers around town. Indeed, there are three down on the mall in front of Scarborough Civic Centre where I work (not for the City). Three lockers compared with the acres of parking around here are nothing in anyone’s grand scheme. They may give a few politicians a photo op, but they make no real contribution to regional transportation capacity.
Regular readers here will know there has been some debate about TTC parking lots. Why, one might ask, doesn’t the TTC and its pro-bike Chair concentrate on providing capacity for bicycle storage at parking lots beside subway stations? This would allow cyclists to ride to the subway, stash their bike and continue on via transit. (Yes, if they wanted to bike at the other end of the trip, this is not much help, but their bike isn’t going on the subway anyhow.)
Maybe we could even let Metropass holders use the bicycle storage facilities free of charge just like motorists. (You have to imagine a Machiavellian grin here which no collection of punctuation can duplicate.)
If the TTC and its pro-bicycle Commissioners want to do something useful for cyclists, why don’t they look at the big picture? Make it easy for people to have a cycle/TTC trip and put them on the same footing (yes, I couldn’t resist that one) as motorists. If cycling is going to be an alternative for cars, it needs to have comparable facilities to be integrated with transit travel.
This item is a potpourri of news from the TTC meeting including:
While I was at the TTC today, I took the oppurtunity to find out what is going on with this endless project. Here’s an update.
The Ramps at St. Clair West
Due to problems with the contractor (no specifics), the work has been on hold. However, the impasse is now resolved, work has (or will shortly) resume and completion is planned for the end of October.
The New Shelters
The now-and-forever project to install new shelters on the completed portion of the line is getting rather comic. They were supposed to come in August, then in September and now they might get here this month, but don’t hold your breath. October, maybe. Considering how long ago this line was designed, the idea that we are only now getting delivery of the shelters is a huge joke.
Why Are The Buses Not On The Right Of Way?
It seems that the buses are afraid of falling off because of clearance problems. Of course, if they hadn’t put those dumb centre poles on the right-of-way, this would not be an issue.
I cannot help thinking that all of these and similar problems are rooted in what passes for design and project management. The TTC can run an efficient project (just look at the recent reconstruction at Kennedy Station), but some on some projects everything that can go wrong does. They can’t blame it all on SOS or Hydro.
One of the more bizarre election stories appeared in the Globe and Mail today — Dalton McGuinty is advancing the idea of hydrogen-fuelled GO Trains.
Regular readers here will know that my opinion of hydrogen as a transit fuel is thinly-veiled contempt on the best of days, and I am astounded to see McGuinty wandering down this technological dead end.
Fuel cells and hydrogen power have their uses, but they run into difficulties even at the scale of a city bus, let alone a railway car. If this were used for GO equipment, it would be at best for self-propelled cars running on minor lines that did not warrant full, locomotive-hauled trains. This is a niche market, not a mainstream replacement for existing equipment. Continue reading
In another thread, Mimmo Briganti commented on the TTC’s revelation that we wouldn’t save anything by closing the Sheppard line.
So it turns out that closing the Sheppard subway would only save $300,000? Total idiots!! Why do they go out spreading such stupid PR when they don’t even have their numbers straight? That $10M figure they quoted was supposed to be NET (after the replacement buses were added).
If this new figure is accurate, doesn’t it destroy your argument against the Spadina extension? If the capital cost of the extension is paid for by the senior levels of gov’t, and the operating cost ratio (subway vs. # of buses) is similar to Sheppard, isn’t it peanuts to run the extension on a cost per passenger basis?
I don’t get it — these numbers just don’t add up!
I agree that the numbers just don’t add up, but there isn’t enough detail in the report and I have been too busy with other matters to try to work through an “alternative” estimate. Alas, we still don’t have an estimated cost to operate the Sheppard line itself, only a claimed delta.
Going from a claimed $10-million annual saving to zero shows a huge error in estimating techniques and undermines the credibility of all of the TTC’s service and cost based proposals. This has happened regularly at the TTC, but never on such a spectacular scale.
Note that the $300K figure is for closing the Sheppard and Spadina (north of St. Clair West) lines only on weekends. There is no cost estimate for a full closure. Of course, you can’t really close the Spadina line operationally because it provides access to Wilson Yard. Sheppard at least could be mothballed, but you don’t get savings from that unless you close it 7×24.
The average weekday ridership on the Sheppard Subway, at 43,000 trips, is matched only by the Dufferin bus, and that route (a) is longer, (b) has good bi-directional demand, and (c) has good all-day demand. The Sheppard riders are much more concentrated in space and time and would require a very frequent peak bus service.
As for the Spadina line, we must be absolutely certain that the capital costs will not block other deserving projects from being funded. Otherwise we could sink every penny of provincial or federal grants into one line but still not have capital available to expand the rest of the system.
The TTC also published a cheerleading report yesterday about why the Spadina extension project must go ahead. I will turn to that report in a separate post.
Earlier today, I learned that TTC’s internal security folks, who have nothing better to do with their time than protect employees from the evils of the Internet, blocked my website for access from the TTC’s network. This lasted about a week.
It is reassuring to know that in these troubled times, TTC staff are not wasting their days reading commentaries that, in some cases, have far more information than they are likely to get internally from their own organization.
The issue of staff “wasting time” on the Internet comes up in every organization, but some are rather heavy handed in how they deal with this. If the problem is that staff are not doing their work, then manage that problem. There are many more ways for people to not work than to surf the net.
Now on the subject of budget cuts, I think we have a candidate who surely won’t be missed.
Today the TTC took a big step back from the brink of disaster with a package addressing the current budget crisis. At last, instead of predictions of widespread service cuts, we actually hear of service improvements with more to come as and when funding is obtained. This is a much more responsible presentation than we have heard from anyone at City Hall in the past months.
After a long presentation followed by a Q&A between the Commissioners and Chief General Manager Gary Webster, we heard from a series of deputations including me. The message was consistent throughout — keeping service is a top priority.
You can read the staff report on the TTC’s website although some of the illustrations are missing. Some of them appear as links from this and future posts. Continue reading
In the previous post, I detailed the decisions taken by the TTC at its September 12, 2007 meeting. Here, I will discuss how they will address the budget shortfall in 2007, 2008 and beyond. Continue reading
Steve Munro 